Internet

At last, broadband in the boonies, but at a price

PENASCO, N.M. -- After five years of enduring Internet access that provided dial-up speeds for uploading and rarely exceeded 1Mbps down, I now cruise along in my home office on the edge of a wilderness area at 7.5Mbps for downloads. My uploads are 30 times faster at 1.5Mbps.

The path to my recent broadband liberation began on a day last fall when that slow satellite connection went dark for an entire day. A malfunction with the satellite literally caused it to shut down and turn away from the Earth. In the process of reporting the story for CNET, I came across a tangentially related tidbit about the launch of a new satellite, called ViaSat-1, which would soon be in orbit and providing new speed and capacity for my satellite Internet provider (WildBlue, which is a subsidiary of ViaSat).

I shared the good news with my family, but didn't plan to hold my breath for the upgrade to trickle down anytime soon through the layers of middlemen and resellers standing between that beautiful new bird in orbit and my Wi-Fi router. If you've read the rest of this week-long series or live in the sticks yourself, you know how new and exciting infrastructure can remain out of grasp, even when it's physically so close to home.… Read more

Wikidata to provide structured data for all Wikipedia versions

With more than 280 different language editions of Wikipedia often sharing data elements like people's birth dates and definitions, there has never been a single central data repository from which each version could pull such information. Until now.

Today, the German chapter of the Wikimedia Foundation pulled back the wraps on Wikidata, a project that is aiming to be a single common source of structured data that can be used across all versions of Wikipedia. By December, that should allow editors of each individual language version of a Wikipedia article to pull data from that repository rather than adding … Read more

VC: There's no Series A crunch, there's a 'seed glut'

SAN FRANCISCO--An article last fall suggesting investment was getting scarce for early stage startups stirred a major commotion in Silicon Valley. But one of the Valley's most prolific investors said tonight that the real issue is there are simply too many companies getting seed funding.

At the inaugural CNET Community Series event here this evening, Naval Ravikant, the founder and CEO of AngelList, rejected the notion that there is a so-called Series A crunch, saying instead that there is a "seed glut."

During the panel on "Startup Funding: Strategies and Opportunities" hosted by CNET's … Read more

With Bump Pay, sending money is easier than ever

Owe your friend $20? There's no need to go to an ATM. Just bump him the money.

Starting today, sending money can be easier than ever with the launch of Bump Pay, a new iPhone app from the makers of the popular contact and photo sharing service Bump.

If you've used Bump, you already know how to send money with the new app: you simply tap your iPhone against your friend's, and the cash gets sent (see video below).

For Bump Pay to work, both you and your friend need to have the app and a PayPal … Read more

News Corp. faces new hacking allegations involving pay TV

With a phone-hacking scandal still hanging over the head of News Corp. in Britain, Rupert Murdoch's international conglomerate is facing new hacking allegations in Australia.

According to the Australian Financial Review, e-mails and internal documents allegedly show that a "secret unit" inside News Corp. committed acts of corporate espionage against rival pay-TV services that may have resulted in the collapse of one company.

As part of the proof presented by the paper, editors there have posted to the Web more than 14,400 internal documents belonging to News Corp.

If the allegations prove true, News Corp. would … Read more

The sound of crickets: VC offices on Y Combinator Demo Day

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--If you 're an entrepreneur looking for money today on the famous Silicon Valley venture capital row known as Sand Hill Road, yes, that is the sound of crickets you hear.

That's because today is Y Combinator Demo Day, and the lion's share of the biggest tech-oriented VCs in the Valley are packed into one auditorium here, listening to 65 early-stage companies pitch their wares.

The list is a veritable who's who of investors: Ron Conway, Tim Draper, Jeff Clavier, Mike Arrington, Stewart Alsop, and many, many others. And they've got their checkbooks … Read more

Is Jybe the recommendation app Yelp should be?

If you ask a friend where to eat or for their favorite dish at a specific restaurant, you'll probably give their suggestion a lot more weight than an automatically generated one, especially if that friend knows your tastes in food.

That's the basic premise behind Jybe, a brand-new iPhone app that launched today. Built by a small team led by three longtime search industry veterans, the app is designed to give users highly relevant suggestions for restaurants--including specific dishes--as well as movies, books, and other things.

These days, there's plenty of ways to get recommendations and reviews … Read more

How I went 24 hours without tech (and lived to tell about it)

On Friday, March 23, the sun set at 7:25 p.m., and as the giant yellow ball in the sky went down somewhere behind the clouds of San Francisco, so did the power on my electronic devices. The screens of my smartphone, laptop, and TV were as dark as the nighttime sky.

Keeping to my word, I was going 24 hours without tech for the National Day of Unplugging. Created by the nonprofit organization Reboot and now in its third year, the National Day of Unplugging encourages people to take a break from information and technology overload and use the time to reconnect with friends and family, go outside, focus on their health, give back, meditate, or take part in other non-tech-centric activities.

Reboot doesn't define what "unplugging" means; instead, it's up to the individual to decide. For me, it meant turning off the electronics I use most, which are my smartphone, laptop, and TV. Working with and covering tech five days a week, I thought it would be nice respite, but as I hit the power button on my devices Friday night, I was surprised at how anxious I felt about being without my gadgets -- more specifically, my phone -- for 24 hours.

What if my friends changed our dinner plans for Saturday night? What if something came up (like the most horrendous haircut of all time?) and I had to bail? Worst of all, what if there was some kind of emergency?

It's amazing where your imagination can take you if you let it, but I tried to put those fears aside. Plus, my competitive side was determined not to let a puny iPhone or 37-inch TV take me down, and thus, I embarked on my tech detox. … Read more

Global manhunt will leverage social media to find 'suspects'

If you had to track down fugitives hidden in five cities around the world, would one day and a $5,000 reward be enough to succeed? And if so, how?

That's what the people behind the TAG Challenge want to know--and what the whole world will soon find out.

On March 31, mug shots of five "suspects" will be published, and it'll be game on in a global hunt for "jewel thieves" in Bratislava, Slovakia; Stockholm; London; Washington, D.C.; and New York City, each of whom will spend 12 hours that day in … Read more

Flying Dutchman is Lying Dutchman in elaborate hoax

Curse you fake birdman! Just when it seemed like we humans might get to spread our wings and fly, it turns out the whole shebang -- videos, plans, everything -- was part of an elaborate plan/scam/hoax by filmmaker Floris Kaayk.

I wrote earlier in the week about the footage produced by Dutch mechanical engineer Jarno Smeets that looked real, if questionable, and has now been disproved and admitted as a very disappointing hoax. As Kaayk put it on his Web site:

Today, I revealed my latest project on Dutch prime-time TV show 'De wereld draait door.' In the … Read more